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" 'Memnoch, these distinctions don't matter. I am God Incarnate.
How could I have a human soul? What is important is that I willremain in this body as it is tortured and slain; and my death will beevidence of my Love for those whom I have created and allowed tosuffer so much. I will share their pain and know their pain.'
" 'Please, Lord, forgive me, but there seems to be somethingwrong with this whole idea.'
"Again, he seemed amused. His dark eyes were filled with asympathetic and silent laughter. 'Wrong? What is wrong, Memnoch,that I shall take the form of the Dying God of the Wood, whom menand women have imagined and dreamed of and sung of since timeimmemorial, a dying god who symbolizes the very cycle of natureitself in which all that is born must die.
" 'I shall die, and I shall rise from the Dead, as that god has risenin every myth of the eternal return of the spring after winter innations all over the world. I shall be the god destroyed and the goduplifted, only here it will happen literally in Jerusalem, not in ceremony,or with human substitutes. The Son of God himself shall fulfill themyths. I have chosen to sanctify those legends with my literaldeath.
" 'I shall walk out of the Tomb. My resurrection will confirm theeternal return of the spring after winter. It will confirm that in Natureall things that have evolved have their place.
" 'But Memnoch, it will be for my death that I am remembered.
My death. It's going to be terrible. It won't be for my resurrectionthey'll remember me, you can be sure of it, for that is somethingmany simply will never see or believe. But my death, my death willspring full blown into a confirmation of mythology, underscored byall the myths which have preceded it, and my death will be a sacrificeby God to know His own Creation. Just what you told me to do.'
" 'No, no, wait, Lord, there's something wrong with this!'
" 'You always forget yourself and to whom you are speaking,' Hesaid kindly, the mixture of human and divine continuing to obsess meas I looked at Him, falling into His beauty and staggered by Hisdivinity, and overcome again and again by my own sure belief that thiswas all wrong.
" 'Memnoch, I've just told you what no one knows but Me,' Hesaid. 'Don't speak to me as if I can be wrong. Don't waste thesemoments with the Son of God! Can't you learn from me in the flesh asyou learn from humans in flesh? Have I nothing to teach you, mybeloved Archangel? Why do you sit here questioning me? Whatcould possibly be the meaning of your word, wrong?'
" 'I don't know, Lord, I don't know how to answer. I can't find allthe words. I just know this is not going to work. First of all, who willdo this torturing and killing?'
" 'The people of Jerusalem,' He said. 'I will succeed in offendingeveryone, the traditional Hebrews, the callous Romans, everyonewill be offended by the blinding message of pure love and what lovedemands of humans. I will show contempt for the ways of others, fortheir rituals and their laws. And into the machinery of their justice Iwill fall.
" 'I will be condemned on charges of treason when I speak of myDivinity, that I am the Son of God, God Incarnate . . . and for myvery message I will be tortured with such embellishment that it willnever be forgotten; my death, by crucifixion, is going to be the same.'
" 'By crucifixion? Lord, have you see men die in this way? Do youknow how they suffer? They are nailed to the wood and they suffocate,hanging as they do, weakening, unable to lift their own weighton their nailed feet, and finally strangling in blood and in pain?'
" 'Of course I've seen it. It's a common form of execution. It'sfilthy and it's very human.'
" 'Oh, no, no,' I cried out. 'This can't be. You don't mean toclimax your teachings with such spectacular failure and execution, withsuch cruelty and death itself!'
" 'This is not failure,' he said. 'Memnoch, I shall be a martyr towhat I teach! Blood offerings of the innocent lamb to the good Godhave been made since Humans began! They instinctively render toGod what is of great value to them to show their love. Who knowsbetter than you who spied on their altars and listened to their prayersand insisted that I listen! Sacrifice and love are connected in them.'
" 'Lord, they sacrifice out of fear! It has nothing to do with love ofGod, does it? All the sacrifices? The children sacrificed to Baal, and ahundred other hideous rituals the world over. They do it out of fear!
Why would love demand sacrifice?'
"I had clamped my hands over my mouth. I couldn't reasonfurther. I was horrified. I could not sort out the thread of my horrorfrom the overall stifling weave. Then I spoke, thinking aloud:
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